{% include "includes/auth/janrain/signIn_traditional.html" with message='It looks like you are already verified. If you still have trouble signing in, you probably need a new confirmation link email.' %}

Appleton Papers changes name

Though a local paper producer earlier dropped plans to merge with an investment firm, the company did proceed with a planned name change.

Appleton Papers is now Appvion, Inc., the company said Monday.

“The new name reflects the company’s heritage of innovation in applying chemistry to paper and microencapsulation as a means to create value for its customers,” the company said in a statement.

“Charles Boyd founded our company 106 years ago today with the belief that he could add value to paper by applying coatings to it,” Mark Richards, Appvion chairman, president and chief executive said in a statement. “Since then, company employees have used their ingenuity and ability to adapt their expertise to new opportunities to prove that Mr. Boyd’s idea was sound, profitable and enduring.”

The Appleton, Wisc.-based company has about 100 workers at a 1030 W. Alex-Bell Road plant in West Carrollton and several workers in Monroe.

In May 2012, the then-Appleton said it would merge with Hicks Acquisition Co. II Inc. to become a publicly traded company traded on Nasdaq in a $675 million transaction. The company said then it would change its name to Appvion.

But in July, both sides had dropped the merger plans, with Appleton saying it would go forward with the name change, however.

The name was meant to combine the words “applied” and “innovation,” Appleton said at the time.

A newspaper in Wisconsin paraphrased an Appvion spokesman Monday as saying the company may still go public or take advantage of an opportunity to change its financial structure.